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Mesa Plata
A massive silver mine located in the Cattle Country, run by the dictatorial Schindler & Son Mining Company and manned by the roughest and toughest criminals the Country has to offer. The mine functions, not justs as a place for the various towns around it to send their prisoners for some good ol' back breaking and soul crushing labor but as an economic asset as those towns who donate laborers get their payment in solid silver ingots. History The history of Mesa Plata dates back to the days before the war when a Poseidon Energy subsidary, Schindler & Sons Mining Company was running the local operations of the conglomerate in Tamaulipas. Its CEO Marcus Schindler was a cruel and draconian man who had a worse human rights record than the Dole Food Company. However despite the headaches he cause Poseidon with constant law suits from human rights firms he was an effective and efficent man who knew how to get work done in a timely manner, thus he was kept along by Poseidon for his skill. Unfortunately he wasn't high enough on Poseidon's rosters to get a peice of the Enclave's pie and thus was stuck on the mainland when the nukes started dropping. From his office in Ciudad Mante he watched as Tampico was hit and as more mushroom clouds appeared over the horizon. He placed the office building on lockdown and activated the buidling's security system. Three hours later, huddled under oak desk in his office, Marcus questioned why he was still alive, upon further inspection he found that Ciudad Mante, had been hit by only a few low yield war heads. Gathering his workers (minus the few who had been blinded or badly burned, most of whom were euthanized) he declared that they would wait out the riots and violence in the saftey of their offices and then strike out from there. Three weeks later the streets were still full of violent rioters and to make matters worse the deadly and invisible force of radiation had settled in the streets of Ciudad Mante, causing many of Marcus' loyal workers to keel over as they succumbed to the horrible effects of radiation. Marcus himself began to feel the horrible effects of radiation as his skin dried up and began to flake off, his hair fell out and eyes turned blood red. He became a ghoul along with a majority of his fellow coworkers, it was at this point that Marcus knew it was time for them to leave and find safer places to hold up in. Gathering themselves they set off for the only other place that Marcus could think to be safe, his companies old silver mine, up in what was to become the Cattle Country. Setting off into the wastes with what few weapons their security officers had seemed like a sure fire way to commit group suicide and thus Marcus had his techs program the robots to follow them into the wastes and to their new location and thus they set off two weeks later with a total of 30 ghouls, four people and 12 robots ranging from the deadly Sentry bots to Mister Gutsies, leaving the slower Protectrons back at the headquarters. After several weeks traveling the wasteland they arrived at the burned out shell that once was the Schindler & Sons silver mine, the construction equipment preserved within the mine, and along with the various mining cranes and drag lines was a small contingent of workers. The workers had sheltered themselves within the strip mine itself, shielding themselves from the radiation and shock waves caused by the nuclear strikes. Marcus with the help of his robots and security forces, he reasserted himself as the chief of the mine essentially extorting the survivors to become his new slave labor force, reopening the mine. The reason behind this move was, Marcus realized that the silver his workers mined and smelted would provide monetary power to any party that chose to support him and his operation, thus as he sent out representatives to the nearby survivor towns to ask for alliances and backing he sent a small parcel of silver ingots as a preview of what was to come should the towns choose to back him. Unsurprisingly many did, sending small contingents of armed guards to help protect the mine and keep the place in order. As time went on and the old miners continued to die off from old age or exhaustion, Marcus began to look for new sources of labor, the most reasonable being convicts. The towns that surrounded Mesa Plata had more than their fair share of issues with crooks and petty criminals and thus Marcus gave them an outlet to which they could get rid of these crooks forever. However, the mine's necessity for manpower was nearly infinite as workers keeled over daily and thus the mine never asked questions when towns sent their prisoners in exchange for gold. In a perhaps unrelated note, slaver operations in the region increased at an impressive rate. To this day Marcus still runs the mine, him and his current security chief Brian Mathenson. Workers Revolt of 2263 All hasn't been well in the mine since it was reopened by Marcus and his men some one hundred and fifty years ago. At one point they came very close to losing control of the mine, that happened on July 2-4, 2263. The mine had anticipated issues with the workers, and thus had stocked up a small supply of pre-war riot gear for the occasion of a riot by the miners. However the mine had never really had a need to use the riot gear as the workers had never risen up en masse prior to those four days, only isolated incidents that were easily handled by one or two guards. Yet there came a man that seemed beyond control, his name was Ciro Alvarez. He was a hardened rustler and Comanchero from the town of Los Fresnos, Texas. To earn his ticket to Mesa Plata he had raped a woman, shot down her husband, brother and father, then killed nearly half the town's police before he was subdued. He was promptly sent to Mesa Plata with mercenaries hired from the Rockport Mercenary Guild and he promptly fought them every step of the way. When he arrived in the mine he quickly hunted down the most determined convicts within the mine and began plotting. What followed was a lot of secret gatherings, planning, hushed whispers and shoving of sharp weapons into posteriors. Then on July 2nd they rose up, attacking individual guards throughout the mine and then seizing whole sections of the mine, they used every weapon they had available, from TNT to old mining trucks to attack the guards, quickly driving them back to the edges of the mine itself. Marcus and the remaining guards fell back to the entrances to the mines and blocked them, they then sent a call out for help from the local towns. The towns not wanting to lose their supply of silver quickly rushed every armed man to the mine as quick as they could be moved. With these reinforcements the guards attacked the revolting miners (who by this point had begun to fight amongst themselves) and drove them back into the mine itself and over the course of the next two days put down the rioters in a brutal series of crackdowns that left most of the revolting miners dead. As for Ciro and his crew, this was the end of the line for them, they met their deaths at the end of a barrel as they led a last final, defiant charge against their oppressors. With the revolt put down, Marcus promptly hired more guards to help better regulate the mine, there hasn't been a successful riot in the mine since. Operation & Security Equipment *'Power Shovel' - This massive piece of pre-war equipment was once used by the mine to extract Silver Ore from the walls of the mine itself, being German made, it was the third largest piece of equipment in the world at the time of the war. The war itself was not kind to the power shovel as it was battered with debris, shook by concussion from the blasts and irradiated, and to top it all off its fuel tank caught fire, burning out a sizeable chunk of the engine block. However, when Marcus and his men retook the mine, he declared that the massive power shovel should be repaired and put back into operation. Using whatever spare parts were left in the mine's old machine repair shop they managed to repair a sizeable chunk of the engine itself. Using fuel from their pre-war reservoirs and selecting a single miner to operate it, they quickly had the old machine back up and running once more. Despite some issues with fuel and spare parts the power shovel has remained operational over the years and looks to stay that way for years to come. *'Mining Trucks '- Once again, remnants of the pre-war mining operations that took place here, the Schindler & Sons Mining Company has managed to restore a total of three of the these pre-war trucks for the expressed purpose of moving the heavy loads of ore to and from the smelter. These three trucks are key to the success of the mine's operations as having animals or workers drag the chunks of ore to the smelter would altogether be too costly and time consuming. Partnership with the Salt Family Back in 2120 a dilemma arose for the Schindler & Sons Mining Company, the vast fuel tanks they had been using to fuel their machinery were quickly running dry. Realising that losing the use of their mining trucks and heavy mine power shovel would drastically reduce their productivity and require more human capital, Erik Schindler began to search for a fresh supply of fuel to keep his operation going. He met with many of his chief advisors, some suggested trying to convert the trucks and power shovel to steam power, others proposed trying to track down replacement vehicles, and still others recommended that they cut their losses and abandon the machinery in favor of more laborers. For the briefest of moments Erik actually considered that, but realising all the money he stood to lose he opted to try and track down a new supplier of fuel. He sent representatives across the wasteland and Tamaulipas, hired merchants to inquire in other towns about sources of fuel, finally one returned declaring that there was indeed another supply of oil, but it was all the way up in northern Texas. Frustrated, Erik had his men begin to look into some way to move the fuel in bulk down south to their operation, he met with representatives from the Royal Caribbean Trading Company, and various other merchant firms and all said that such an operation was well out of their reach. About to give in to the inevitable, he was suddenly met by a member from a merchant firm named the Salt Family. The rep offered the services of the Clan for the price of 800 caps or 8 silver bars for every three shipments. In return the Clan would move oil down into Tamaulipas and to the mine en masse, three times every two weeks. Elated with the offer Erik accepted, thus solving the S & S fuel issues. Layout The mine is a massive pit/strip mine located within the Cattle Country, exactly 25 miles from Valle Hermoso. The mine itself is laid out like this, the administration building, guard barracks and prisoner processing office is located on the outside of the strip itself, with guardposts guarding the entrance. Within the mine itself is the Power shovel, the trucks moving back and forth along with the smelter that melts down the ore and forms them into silver bars (through worker assistance naturally). Category:Places Category:Tamaulipas Category:Mexico